


Keeping the Promise

by Azar



Category: Lone Gunmen, The X-Files
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-27
Updated: 2011-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-25 00:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/pseuds/Azar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yves keeps the last promise she made to John Byers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping the Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Written shortly after, and in response to, the X-Files episode "Jump the Shark."

**Biology 421, Advanced Biochemistry  
UCLA  
April 26, 2002**

The soft snick of the lecture hall door closing caused all heads to turn. Holly Fitzgerald looked up at the shape of the slim dark-haired young woman who stood in the doorway at the top of the classroom. The piece of chalk in Holly's hand paused on the board. Across the room, unfamiliar black eyes sought out the professor with a sad gaze.

"Can I help you?" Holly asked, a trace of impatience creeping into her voice.

"Are you Doctor Holly Fitzgerald?" the woman asked in a lilting English accent.

"Yes, and I'm in the middle of a class--"

"This can't wait," was the curt reply.

Holly's temper flared at the brusqueness in the other woman's voice, but she curbed it, set down the chalk and addressed her students. "I'll expect you all to have finished chapter fifteen by tomorrow. There will be a quiz on the material."

Dismissing the class, the blonde woman climbed the stairs to the back of the room to face her visitor, indicating with a gesture of her head that they should take this down the hall to her office. Once inside, Doctor Fitzgerald shut the door and turned on the stranger with an angry stare. "Now. What was so important that it couldn't wait ten minutes for me to finish my lecture?"

The mysterious young woman said nothing at first, only approached the desk and laid something on it. Then she spoke. "I was asked to give this to you. I was told...that you would understand its significance."

She lifted her hand and Holly choked back a gasp. Stumbling, she dropped into her seat, any shred of irritation blown away as if by a sudden wind. "When? How?"

"Five days ago," was the soft, sad reply. "As for how...I suppose as he was always meant to."

Trembling, Doctor Fitzgerald reached out a hand to touch the plain, gold band sitting on her desk. Her heart contracted as her fingers closed around it. "Oh God, John..."

Blue eyes lifted to meet black, and saw the same sadness in them. "What happened?"

The visitor sighed. "There was a virus. A human time bomb, designed to go off at the recent Bioethics conference in Washington. He and Frohike and Langly...they sealed themselves into an airtight chamber with the carrier, exposing themselves, rather than let the contagion escape into the atmosphere."

The blonde's face whitened. "Then it's my fault. If he had never met me...oh God...he gave me my life back, and I led him to his death."

"No, Susanne--"

The woman calling herself Holly Fitzgerald looked up in surprise at the sound of her real name. The other woman smiled sadly. "Byers made me promise to tell you this. To thank you. He said..." Her voice hitched almost imperceptibly. "...that you saved those lives. That without you, they would not have been there to stop the spread of the virus. And he's right. Without them, I would have targeted the wrong man and the virus very well might have been released."

Susanne felt a sob start to rise in her chest and a hand flew to her mouth to cover it.

The visitor rose. "If you should want to say goodbye...they're buried in Arlington National Cemetery at the request of Assistant Director Skinner of the FBI. You ought to be proud of him, Susanne. He saved the world for you."

She turned to leave.

"Which one?"

The stranger stopped, glancing back at Susanne with a curious look on her face.

"Which one did you love?"

The younger woman's eyes misted over as she struggled visibly for control. "All of them."

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Stephen Snedden, for promising me it would be a noble end--it was. (I met him on the set of The X-Files while they were filming "Jump the Shark.") And to Bruce Harwood, Dean Haglund and Tom Braidwood, for making me love the guys so much.


End file.
